


mad life, mad life

by amiavegetable



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon verse, Gen, M/M, Probably ooc, don't look at me idk anything about nct, jaehyun is knocked out for most of this, mark salvages things, mentions of alcohol and drinking but nothing in the actual story, where did this even come from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 11:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amiavegetable/pseuds/amiavegetable
Summary: Sleepless nights with Taeyong: Jaehyun sticks around. Mark helps.





	mad life, mad life

**Author's Note:**

> will i ever write for relevant ships? never. this is POINTLESS
> 
> [mad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Q6e1VhEhA) [city](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpRA8Fks0Gw)

Three in the morning, and Taeyong isn’t sleeping.

That in itself isn’t wildly unusual, because he didn’t get to where he is now, and isn’t able to stay and hold his position without his fair share of sweat. In this profession, there are always, always things to do, further goals to push yourself to. And every time you step over the finishing line, there’s another in sight.

This means that doing what he does, there is very little time to stop and take a breather, to revel in one’s achievements. There is even less time to just enjoy yourself.

It’s a thought Taeyong does not dwell on often, partly because he doesn’t have the time to, partly because it’s harsh having to admit to yourself that big dreams, particularly his own, come with huge walls built around them.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes his resolve wears thin, sometimes, _sometimes_ \- it just takes a steady streak of small personal successes resulting in the taut string around his body and mind to relax just the tiniest bit, a reckless spark come to life. Sometimes it just takes Jung Jaehyun and his smile, and an old heartstring being pulled.

In his profession, there is very little time to enjoy yourself. But it does get better, with every trophy and every year of age popping another weak link in the chain. Three hours earlier, Yuta stretches his back and breaks into an enormous yawn, blinking to get his eyes to focus on room vision after staring at his phone screen for so long. Three hours earlier, Yuta leaves Taeyong and Jaehyun on the living room couch, the last ones left simmering in the sort of drowsy atmosphere that always seems to settle over the dorm at the very end of a promotion cycle, but manifests as something almost tangible in the late hours.

Without the shuffling of Yuta’s feet and the little clicking noises his phone makes every time he taps on the screen, the room is almost quiet. The TV is set on the lowest volume, creating a pleasant hum in the background. Hood pulled over his head and eyes drooping, feet propped against Jaehyun’s thigh for extra warmth, Taeyong thinks he could fall asleep like this.

But then there’s Jaehyun, and a glint in Jaehyun’s eyes that screams adventure that wasn’t there before Yuta left and Taeyong, sort of caught off guard, is pulled in with it.

They won on M Countdown for the first time, and standing on that stage with the weight of the trophy in his hands, the never-ending burning in his thighs from the choreography seemed pretty worth it. He’s said this out loud in a rather weak attempt to voice his emotions, the members spilling out of their dressing room after the show and no one close enough to hear him except for Jaehyun and Mark, Jaehyun’s eyes crinkling as he told him that Taeyong’s got his priorities all wrong. Because what the trophy is actually worth is their manager getting in a celebratory mood and making an off-hand comment in Jaehyun’s presence about letting it slip should the older boys want to go out and celebrate a little themselves.

Jaehyun recalls this now, and Taeyong considers the little opportunity they get to enjoy themselves, the warm, sleepy silence wafting over from the kids’ bedrooms in waves, the absolute radio silence from their manager during the entire first day off they’ve had in weeks. Jaehyun’s eyes sparkle, and Taeyong says okay.

Which is how, fast forward a few hours, it’s three in the morning, and Taeyong is sitting on a greasy plastic bench outside of a Family Mart, clutching the lapels of Jaehyun’s leather jacket between his fingers and trying hard not to throw up.

Inside of the store, there’s Mark, face lit in strange angles by the blue and green neon ad on the vending machine, so composed between shelves of cup ramyun and packets of onion rings. He talks to the cashier, half of his face hidden by a black mask, pays for something with a bill and gets a handful of coins in return, which he pockets without dropping any. Taeyong is incongruously impressed.

The doorbell rings when Mark pushes the door open, and the sudden rush of AC-stale air makes Taeyong’s stomach clench, so he turns away quickly. Mark, unfazed, drops down on the bench next to him, setting the store plastic bag in front of Taeyong. “There’s water in there.“

When Taeyong shows no reaction, he reaches inside the bag, pulling out a water bottle and holding it out to Taeyong. “I don’t actually know what you’re supposed to consume when you’re drunk but I figured water couldn’t hurt“, he says, reaching into the bag a second time to produce a sleeve of Oreos. Taeyong thinks if he opens his mouth to reply he might vomit for real, so he says nothing, fingers tightening around the neck of the water bottle.

They sit like this for a while, Mark munching on the Oreos with his face mask dangling off one ear, Taeyong taking measured breaths through his nose. Silent. Mark can be good at silence, for which Taeyong is grateful. It gives him the space to think, and even though his vision is still sort of tilted, street lights smudges of yellow and orange in the dark, he can try to bring some order in the jumbled mess that are the past three hours in his head.

Jaehyun had smiled, and yanked Taeyong to his feet, pulling him with him as silent as possible. He had still been smiling in the greyish dark outside, and in the different dark inside the club, teeth a pearly white. Taeyong remembers his hands around his, in the streets and at the bar, the burn of liquor in his throat. His brain zips.

Mark is here. Which means that he, or Jaehyun, must have called him. To the outsider, this makes zero sense, to Taeyong, it’s a line of argumentation even his muddled brain can follow. Mark has a driver’s license, freshly acquired and therefore making him actually less qualified for this than let’s say, Johnny, who’s been driving for something like five years. But Mark is also the only one Taeyoung would allow to see him like this, head above the clouds, no, lost in space, and stomach ready to hurl.

Besides Jaehyun, maybe.

Speaking of whom.

Taeyong jolts so suddenly Mark almost drops his cookie, foot kicking at nothing and turning to Taeyong with wide eyes. “Hyung, what?“

“I lost Jaehyun- oh my god, I lost Jaehyun in the club, I don’t remember- how did we get here?“

Mark slumps back into his previous position, huffing a little. “He’s asleep in the backseat of the car“, he says, brushing a few crumbs off his sweatpants. Taeyong realizes belatedly that he probably string-texted Mark out of bed, or worse, drunk-dialed him. “Don’t worry, you didn’t lose him.“

Taeyong drops his forehead to Mark’s shoulder, who shifts a little in surprise. “Thank god“, he says into the fabric of Mark’s hoodie. “What exactly happened?“

“Well“, Mark says. “I woke up because you were calling me“, Taeyong winces, mouths a _sorry_ into Mark’s shoulder, “no one else woke up though, don’t worry. So I picked up and you were saying something but I couldn’t hear you properly because there was music in the background and you… weren’t very eloquent.“ He pauses. “Sorry, hyung.“

Taeyong makes a waving gesture with his hand, not bothering to lift his head. Mark clears his throat. “So, I went into the living room and got the location out of you. Took manager hyung’s car and picked up you guys at the club.“ At this, he giggles a little. “You were both drunk off your _ass_.“

Taeyong shoves him, but it’s too weak to do anything, besides, he still has half of his face buried in Mark’s hoodie. The now empty Oreo sleeve crinkles between Mark’s fingers crunching up the plastic to a ball fitting snug into his palm. The night is warm and suffocating.

“We should go“, he says. Taeyong makes an unintelligible noise. There are very few times where he lets himself be like this, and he knows he wouldn’t be if he were in his right mind. But he isn’t, not tonight, and so he leans on Mark’s lithe frame while he leads him to the car, opens the door for him and helps him inside. Mark walks around the car to get to the driver’s seat while Taeyong twists his head to peek on the backseat and right, there’s Jaehyun, curled up in a position that can’t be comfortable, wearing only his t-shirt because Taeyong has his jacket. The hair falling into his face moves with his slow breaths, and Taeyong thinks he’ll be okay.

“Mark“, he mumbles a little later, blindly reaching out and getting hold of Mark’s wrist when he’s just about to leave from where he’s delivered Taeyong and Jaehyun back onto the couch in their dorm. “Thanks.“

Mark smiles, and there’s bits of dark Oreo stuck between his teeth. “Sure thing“, he says.

-

Two in the morning, and Taeyong isn’t sleeping.

It’s all professional this time, and Taeyong is frustrated enough to wish it weren’t. There’s a soft haziness to his memories of that night a few weeks ago, the clubbing with Jaehyun and the sobering up with Mark outside of some convenience store, not least because of the slight easing in his schedule with the end of a month of promotions. Now though, now it’s a different part of the cycle, and Taeyong’s days are filled with evaluations and writing sessions and a creeping, utterly frustrating sense of unproductiveness. The company is giving them more freedom for this next album, the ominous phrasing at their last meeting hinting at two or three free slots for self-written songs. The unfortunate reality, though, is this: there aren’t many members in NCT who write songs, and Taeyong doesn't blame anyone for it, he knows these things can’t be forced. But it leaves most of the stress of producing something decent, something _good_ for their fans to him, and well, Mark, alone.

In the dim light of the crammed studio, Taeyong thumbs through pages of lyrics, most of them crossed out and scribbled over, hours of squeezing his brain for any creative juices imprinted on graphite-y paper.

Jaehyun is asleep on the narrow cot shoved to the wall of the studio, curled up from when Taeyong texted him earlier to come over and run some lines with him. He has a fuzzy idea of a song with Jaehyun’s (mostly Jaehyun’s) vocals bouncing around in his head, old-school division of rap verses and vocal choruses. Maybe he could get Taeil to do the bridge, if he comes up with a decent one. Maybe he could lie down next to Jaehyun and fit himself into the shape of his curled up body so they don’t topple over and down to the floor.

He gets up instead, walking down the hall to the coffee vending machine. Drops a few coins in the slot, waits for the two streams of steaming liquid to fill up the white plastic cup with his hands in his pockets, tiredness sitting deep in his bones. He thinks that if he touched the skin under his eyes now, his fingertips would come away purple.

That’s how Mark finds him, half slumped against the wall, steam rising from the white plastic cup in his hands. Mark’s hair’s been getting long recently, and Taeyong stares at the ridiculous tiny half-bun on top of his head like it’s sprung from another dimension. Not that his own fried hair is any better, dark roots glaring beneath the faded pink strands.

He speaks up when Mark presses the same button on the machine as him just a few minutes ago, “why are you not sleeping?“

Mark shrugs. “Same reason why you’re not sleeping“, he says. The machine beeps and since when does Mark drink his coffee black? Since when does he drink coffee at all?

Taeyong rubs a hand over his eyes and slowly lowers himself to the floor, joints creaking like an old man’s. He feels muddy, dry, like a well someone kicked a ton of rubble and sand into to block all the water. He knows, because this is not the first time he’s done this, not the first time he’s felt like this, that if he just keeps kicking, keeps holding on, the water will flow back eventually. Eventually, some of the messy scribbles in his notebook won’t look and sound as bad in his head, eventually, he will find a good point from where he can start, feather out, figure out beats and rhythm and flow. Until then, he will stay up late, drown himself in instant coffee, maybe sometimes ask Jaehyun to sing a few lines for him. That’s his deal.

Mark, he knows, is just about the polar opposite. The first time they wrote a song together, Mark filled three entire pages in the time it took Taeyong to write half a verse, humming stray bits of disconnected melodies under his breath and muttering English words Taeyong didn’t understand. Picking up the shards of Taeyong’s pride in one flourish motion, _nah, hyung, it’s just easier for me to write a lot because I can think of stuff in two languages._ Looking at Taeyong’s empty hands with a smile full of unwavering faith. _You’ll come around, I know it._

He looks up at Mark who looks unsure, matching white cup in hand, caught between sitting down across from Taeyong and staying standing how he is. Taeyong makes the decision for him: places his empty coffee cup next to him and pushes himself off the floor, returning to Mark’s eye level (and Mark’s been a little taller than him since the beginning of this year, and doesn’t it all feel so strange.)

“I’ll be going back to the studio“, he says. “Don’t stay up too late.“

“What about you?“

Taeyong smiles. “I had an idea just now.“

Something like a year ago, Taeyong and Mark wrote a song together, Taeyong numb and soaring, haunted by the strings of hate comments every time he set a pen to paper, a foot in the dance studio, always told to calm down, lay low for now. Mark didn’t tell him to calm down, but rapped an almost complete verse almost completely in English for him, words punching and fierce. _Why are they doubting you? Why are they doubting_ us _? They shouldn’t._

Back in the studio, Jaehyun stirs when Taeyong opens the door, strands of hair slipping from his face and splaying beneath his head like a fuzzy halo. “Time ’s it“, he slurs, blinking as the harsh light from the hallway spills into the dim dark of the studio.

“Something past two“, Taeyong says, making his way over to the desk.

“’Kay“, Jaehyun mumbles. “Need me to do some more lines?“

Taeyong bends down and reaches for his notebook, pages flimsy from all the pencil marks. “Maybe in a bit.“

Jaehyun makes a noise that sounds like agreement and turns on the cot. “I’ll be here.“

Taeyong manages to write three rough verses before the sun rises and decides that it’s enough, for now.

-

One in the morning, and Taeyong isn’t sleeping, but he’s almost there.

Jaehyun’s talking from somewhere that isn’t his bed because that’s where Taeyong is, lying face down and too tired to mind that all he’s breathing is Jaehyun, or maybe he doesn’t really mind at all. Mixed in between Jaehyun’s warble is Johnny’s baritone, his hearty laugh intercepting with his tone. Taeyong turns his head at the mention of his name, slowly cracking an eye open.

“What?“

Jaehyun grins. “Your hair is all crazy.“

Johnny starts laughing again. “I can’t believe you idiots got shitfaced on your own and Mark had to steal manager hyung’s car to come pick you up. _Mark_ , of all people.“

“I was out for all of this“, Jaehyun shrugs, a glint in his eyes when he looks at Taeyong, who just buries his face back in his pillow and flips Johnny off.

Johnny sounds like he’s going to tease Taeyong more, but he’s interrupted by Mark, who, by the sounds of it, comes tumbling into the room with a crash and starts pleading Johnny to let him sleep in his bed tonight.

“Please“, he whines in English, probably wiggling between Johnny and Jaehyun on Johnny’s bed because he’s insufferable like that. “Yuta left his shit all over my bed again and I just don't wanna deal with it, not tonight.“

Taeyong hears Jaehyun giggle and a sound that might be Johnny lightly slapping Mark up the head. He feels the bed dip and a body with Jaehyun’s laugh settling next to him, arm brushing Taeyong’s. He opens his eyes to Mark’s pout from where he’s sitting on the floor, t-shirt ridiculously oversized on his small frame and eyebrows crinkled with a frown.

“You look stupid“, Taeyong mumbles fondly, lifting his arm to press his palm to Mark’s dumb face.

He falls asleep half through the motion, arm dangling off the edge of Jaehyun’s bed, Johnny’s obnoxious laughter ringing in the background.

**Author's Note:**

> idk lol i love mark lee
> 
> i have two ficfest submissions to make soon and i wrote this instead someone please teach me how to manage my time
> 
> kudos/comments are v much appreciated!


End file.
